As I commented a while ago, when I repaved my machine with Vista and Office 2007 I didn't install the whole suite thanks to the whole product keys mess MSDN create;. in particular, I left Project and InfoPath uninstalled until the problem was resolved and I had time to deal with it.

Well, by now the problem has been resolved and new product keys were issued, so with a little free time in my hands today I decided to try and install the missing components from the suite. Infopath 2007 installed without any problems. Project, however, is a completely different story.

The problem is that because of the way the keys were issued originally, I ended up initially with Visio installed with the shared Project/Visio product key. When the new keys were issued, a new one was given for Visio, but I already had Visio activated and running with the old key. So, in theory, I needed to install Project with the Visio key and not the original one. Fine.

So I tried, but for some reason, the project installer refused the key (said it was invalid), so just to check if I was doing it correclty, I copied the original shared key and it was accepted. Then I copied the new Visio key again and it still said accepted, so I proceeded to install. After 20 minutes or so, installation was done and tried to activate. No dice; it refused the activation saying they key had already been used to activate a different product. WTF?

So my guess is that once the stupid Project installer noticed a valid key, it paid no mind to me changing it (even though I had not clicked the Next Button yet) and installed using the old key that was already used. Great. So now I had to uninstall Project and start all over again.

So finally, after about 1 hour (!) the project uninstaller is done. Why the heck did it took so long? But, by now, I'm just pissed off at the whole thing: Pissed off at MSDN for screwing up the key generation. Pissed off at however came up with this whole Activation Crap. And pissed off at the stupid project installer/uninstaller for being so damn slow and asking me to reboot after uninstalling it to top it all.

And you know what? Project is not even worth all this trouble. Screw it.

Vista, Office, Project, Activation